Sweet Dreams RotG OS

Everyone knows that the Sandmans job is to bring good dreams to children. Many would think it was easy after Pitch had been defeated, they would be wrong. While Pitch could force a good dream to become a bad dream, sometimes it just happened.

After Sandy sent out his dream sand the child's imagination would shape it. This, in theory, meant that the child would always have something they enjoyed as a dream. However, theories like that rarely worked in practice.

Sometimes a child would turn a good dream bad on their own. They might be dreaming of staying at their grandmothers place, baking cookies or something, when suddenly the house caught fire. Pitch was not 'needed' in these cases, they just happened.

It was something Sandy had grown to accept, after all, without the bad you would not know what was good.

In these cases he could intervene directly and change it back to a good dream. Normally he didn't, because a bad dream once in a while was good for a kid. However, if a child was in the hospital he always intervened.

It did not matter how long they were there, Sandy felt that the kids in the hospital were going through enough. They were in a strange environment, they were sick or in pain, and they were often scared. He refused to let these children have bad dreams, if he could help it.

Often it was harder to change their dreams from bad to good, as they were often focused on why they were there or what they thought might happen. So Sandy paid close attention to the hospitals when he sent out his dreamsand, and if he noticed anything amiss he went down.

At the moment he was floating over a small town, mostly there because it was a tourist spot, and spreading his dreams. The town only had one hospital, and Sandy watched it closely. He sighed silently as the dreams of at least three, maybe four children in the hospital changed almost as soon as they reached them.

He went down to see what he could do to help them.

-------

It was nothing serious, the doctors had said she would be fine, but they wanted to keep Theresa overnight for some reason. She hadn't been paying much attention and wasn't sure why.

Her sisters and father had gone back to the campsite, her mom was staying in a nearby motel. It was already dark and Theresa did not want to sleep.

She was afraid of so many things right now, she knew she would have nightmares. She had never been in a hospital, it was weird, the bed was hard, she was all alone. The blinds were closed, someone said it was to help her sleep or something, but it made her more scared. She could not see the moon or the stars, which always made her feel safe. Mostly she was afraid because she vividly remembered that she dreamed of drowning the night before, and then she almost had. She did not want to have the same dream again.

However, she knew she couldn't fight off sleep long, so in an effort to make her dreams good she sang her lullaby, 'I can see the Sandman,' quietly to herself. As she finished the song she yawned, and within a few minutes she fell asleep.

At first, Theresa thought she was going to have a good dream. She was flying through the air, playing in the clouds and gliding with birds, but the dream quickly changed. The clouds turned dark and lightning flashed. The birds were gone and she was thrown out of the air by a strong wind, right into the ocean below. Which swallowed her in darkness.

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Sandy floated down to the hospital, sneaking in he looked at a small boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old. While nothing appeared to be physically wrong with the boy, he was hooked up to many machines.

The dream sand Sandy had sent down had turned gray, meaning the dream he was having was bad, but not a full nightmare yet. Looking at the dream Sandy saw the boy running with other kids, but he was falling behind. The miniature of the boy started coughing as the sand above the boy's head darkened.

Without a second thought Sandy added some more of his dream sand, changing the dream with his own thoughts. The boy stopped coughing in the dream, and in his mind he felt completely better. The other children that had been leaving him behind came and joined him again and they continued playing.

With a smile and a silent laugh Sandy moved on to help the other children in the hospital.

He went room to room, changing bad dreams and nightmares. He was thankful, as not many children were in the hospital to begin with, and those that were seemed to be having mostly good dreams.

In the end he only had to change about three dreams, and was going into the last room. This room had a girl about 13 years of age, and she was already well into a nightmare as Sandy entered.

He could see that in her dream she was surrounded by waves and it was raining, he was moving to the bed to change the dream just as a wave covered the girls head in the dream.

She shot up, the dream sand disappearing, her eyes full of fear. She shut her eyes tightly, hugging her chest.

"Just a dream" She said to herself quietly, over and over, taking deep breaths. Sandy had jumped back when the girl had woken up, and waited as she calmed down. Normally kids would just lay down and go back to sleep, then he would be able to ensure she had good dreams for the rest of the night.

And she was just like any other kid, when she had calmed herself down she put her head on the pillow. With a smile Sandy was about to send some dream sand over her when she started talking to herself.

"Don't fail me this time, Sandman" She whispered, shocking Sandy still, then she started singing once again.

In his many years as a Guardian; Sandy had heard many lullaby's. He enjoyed them, as they were usually very cute and helped kids have good dreams. However, he could not remember ever hearing a lullaby about himself. The girl was singing very softly, and Sandy could not help but feel curious.

The girl was facing away from him, so he moved closer to hear. He would put her to sleep as soon as she was done, he told himself.

The girl sang, and yawned every so often. It was not a long lullaby, and she was done singing in less than a minute. Just as Sandy was about to give the girl a good dream for the night, she rolled over to get comfortable.

Spotting Sandy she shot up and almost fell off her bed backward. She looked like she was about to scream so he held a finger to his lips.

Strangely, the girl listened, and stared silently. After nearly a minute of them staring at each other she finally spoke.

"You're... The sandman" She said, and he nodded, "Right. Okay, um" she continued, unsure of what to say, then she blushed, "Did you just hear me singing?"

When he nodded her face turned bright red, and she covered face with her hands. Sandy laughed silently and tapped her shoulder, causing her to look at him. With a friendly smile he gave her a thumbs up, as a microphone appeared above his head.

The blush faded from the girls face, "You liked it?" She said, again he nodded a question mark appearing above his head this time, "Oh... My dad wrote it for my sister when she was a baby, it's my favorite song." She said, not wanting the conversation to end but not sure how to continue.

Sandy smiled and nodded, then pointed to the window, saying he had to go.

"Yeah, okay" the girl said, losing the smile that had been on her face, "I guess I have to sleep anyway."

Sandy nodded and she got under her covers again, as the Sandman sent his dream sand towards her she mumbled one last thing, "Since you didn't ask, my name's Theresa" She yawned and fell asleep.

Sandy laughed as he saw the dream form and headed out to spread more dreams.

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For the rest of the night Theresa dreamed of going around the globe with the sandman, giving good dreams to kids. At points they met up with Jack Frost, Santa, and the Easter Bunny, at many points she was sure she saw fairies going in and out of houses, but she wasn't sure. It became a reoccurring dream, though it changed a bit every time, and she always loved it.